New Technique of the Week: an ongoing thread

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Kelly Pedersen

Sounds to me like a technique that could also be usefully applied to Hiking, Riding, and Skiing, at least, and probably other movement skills too, like Flying and Swimming.

Some of those, certainly. Let me think about that, and it might need a different name.

Thinking about this a bit more, though, just buying up the skill for complementary bonus purposes feels a bit... unexciting, I guess. I'd suggest switching it around a little, making it a roll against [Skill]-5, but if you succeed, you get double the usual complementary bonus: +2 on a success, or +4 on a critical success.

Something doesn't feel quite right about this, although I agree the technique is not exciting as it stands. How about reducing the incidence of critical failures for the person being guided?

[Kelly Pedersen]

Originally Posted by johndallman

How about reducing the incidence of critical failures for the person being guided?

An interesting idea, yeah. Maybe model it like the "stabilizing roll" that GURPS Thaumatology suggests for different spell colleges? So the guide could roll at a bit of a penalty (I wouldn't suggest -5 if we're not going to increase the complementary bonus), and if they succeed, they give the person they're guiding a bonus, and that person fails, the guide can roll their own Climbing/Hiking/whichever skill roll, and if that succeeds, the subject's roll is treated as an ordinary failure instead of a critical failure?

There might be room for additional penalties based on group size here too.

[RogerBW]

Originally Posted by Kelly Pedersen

An interesting idea, yeah. Maybe model it like the "stabilizing roll" that GURPS Thaumatology suggests for different spell colleges? So the guide could roll at a bit of a penalty (I wouldn't suggest -5 if we're not going to increase the complementary bonus), and if they succeed, they give the person they're guiding a bonus, and that person fails, the guide can roll their own Climbing/Hiking/whichever skill roll, and if that succeeds, the subject's roll is treated as an ordinary failure instead of a critical failure?

There might be room for additional penalties based on group size here too.

How about a mechanism for invoking the "confirmed crit" rule used with Piloting?

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by RogerBW

How about a mechanism for invoking the "confirmed crit" rule used with Piloting?

That seems like a good idea. How about this?

Guiding (Climbing). Average, default Climbing cannot exceed Climbing+4.

This is the ability to assist someone else's Climbing. It allows you to roll the technique as a complementary skill to their Climbing. In addition, if your Guiding is 15+ (a default qualifies) then the person you're guiding can re-roll any critical failures of their Climbing, and only actually critically fail if their second roll is a critical failure, as for Piloting.

Since this requires talking, it can't be done stealthily, and you need a shared language.

[RogerBW]

Originally Posted by johndallman

That seems like a good idea. How about this?

Guiding (Climbing). Average, default Climbing cannot exceed Climbing+4.

This is the ability to assist someone else's Climbing. It allows you to roll the technique as a complementary skill to their Climbing. In addition, if your Guiding is 15+ (a default qualifies) then the person you're guiding can re-roll any critical failures of their Climbing, and only actually critically fail if their second roll is a critical failure, as for Piloting.

That seems reasonable. It's not a thing to do automatically, because every manoeuvre when you Guide is one when you're not climbing yourself.

Originally Posted by johndallman

Since this requires talking, it can't be done stealthily, and you need a shared language.

Well… perhaps just "this requires communication"? Because it could be done with telepathy, or throat-mics, or neural interface, each of which would have its own set of detectability problems.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Hellboy

just munching out over MA89...

My New Techniques effort is about non-combat techniques. Thanks for making me realise that I hadn't explained that in this thread: that has now been fixed in the root message.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by RogerBW

Well… perhaps just "this requires communication"? Because it could be done with telepathy, or throat-mics, or neural interface, each of which would have its own set of detectability problems.

How about:

"This requires you to be able to see and communicate with the person you're guiding, without perceptible lag time."

[johndallman]

Guiding (Climbing, Flying, Hiking, Riding, Skating, Skiing or Swimming). Average, default prerequisite, cannot exceed Prerequisite+4.

This is a group of separate techniques for assisting others with physical activities, which use common rules. They are not Teaching, although a skilled guide will often have Teaching skill as well.

All of them allow you to roll your Guiding (skill) technique, and have it function as a complementary skill to the guidee's use of the same skill. In addition, if your Guiding is 15+ (a default qualifies) then the person you're guiding can re-roll any critical failures of their skill, and only actually critically fail if their second roll is a critical failure, as for Piloting.

To do this, you need to be able to see and communicate with the person you're guiding, without perceptible time-lag.

[johndallman]

<Elixir> (Herb Lore). Hard, default Herb Lore -1 or worse, cannot exceed Herb Lore.

The technique rules for Alchemy skill are entirely applicable to Herb Lore. With dozens of elixirs available to make, putting two points into a hard technique for either skill may not seem worthwhile, but it's actually a good model for self-training. Buy two techniques, costing a total of four points, then trade them in for a level of Herb Lore. Repeat as often as you like; you might have a favoured elixir that you include in every cycle, or you might just make anything whose ingredients are in season.

[johndallman]

Autopsy (Surgery). Hard, default Surgery, cannot exceed Surgery+4. This allows you to buy up skill in the dissection part of an autopsy, which is fairly standardised.

Finding evidence or clues during an autopsy usually requires rolls against Diagnosis, Forensics, or Physiology, but Biology (Entomology or Microbiology) is sometimes needed. Toxicology is Biology (Biochemistry) or Chemistry (Analytical). The Autopsy technique is a complementary skill to all of these rolls.

It's Hard because you only get one try at dismantling a corpse; a "second autopsy" involves another pathologist making new Diagnosis (etc.) rolls, at -1 if the corpse has been frozen or -2 if it has been embalmed (which also gives -3 or worse to further toxicology tests).

Opinions?